Business Key To Solid Waste Solutions

February 21, 1991|By Jean-Pierre Ergas, Chief executive officer, American National Can Company.

CHICAGO — Although recycling is the focus of current efforts to attack the solid waste problem, and rightly so, it is not a panacea.

That is because only about 30 to 35 percent of municipal solid waste is recyclable with today`s knowledge and economics. The major portion of the solid waste stream is not recyclable today, because neither the technology nor the markets exist to recover and reuse it.

In fact, a recent U.S. EPA study projects that despite an increasing recycling rate, more than half of the municipal solid waste stream will still end up in landfills in 1995.

Thus, although active participation of the public in recycling and curbside collection programs is essential, industry must use its initiative to accomplish the goals of solid waste management in other ways as well. A number of tacks are possible-indeed, several already are in place.

For example, solid waste considerations must be factored into the design of the package. In the last 20 years, packaging manufacturers have reduced by 30 percent the amount of aluminum and steel in beverage cans and of glass in bottles. Plastic bottles have been reduced in weight by as much as 19 percent in the last two years. Shifting to lighter-weight, smaller-volume packages, such as flexible pouches for concentrated laundry detergent to replace large, heavier bottles, also will encourage source reduction.

More compactable refuse is inevitable, not only because of the landfill shortage, but because collection is the highest cost of solid waste management. This could bode well for flexible plastic packaging if reason prevails. While plastic has often been tagged environmentally unsound, flexible packaging offers good potential for alleviating solid waste problems because it occupies less space than some other materials.

Business also must spur efforts to develop waste-to-energy systems. By developing partnerships with local municipalities, business could lend strategic planning, analytical skills and the opportunity for lower-cost, potentially cleaner power than is currently being generated.

Unquestionably, business must take a collective approach to this problem. One model is the agreements American National Can has signed with the largest provider of recycling collection services in the U.S., Waste Management of North America, and with one of the world`s largest plastic producers, Du Pont. These agreements move the widest range of containers from raw material supplier to package to consumer to collection and back to raw material producers.

We have the opportunity for enterprising solutions so long as business adopts a positive attitude toward waste management. We must recognize, for example, that if our business is packaging, our business also is solid waste management and resource recovery.

We defeat our common purpose when we use negative advertising, play one packaging material against another or pit environmental concerns against short-term market position.

We also lose if we forsake our leadership role. What we business leaders don`t initiate, government will legislate or regulate.

All of us in business are in this together, and together we must lead the way in resource recovery. There is enough work for all.